Page 35 of Crown of the Dunes (The Ballan Desert #2)
Breath rushed out of me as the chain encircled all three tails, the loose manacle on the end catching to trap them. The angry clack of pincers filled the air as the tricrith found itself caught.
I hauled against the chain, even as the creature flexed its muscular body. The manacles scraped my wrists, and my boots began to slide across the ground, as much as I tried to dig in my heels.
“Keera, now!” I shouted.
She didn’t need further encouragement, charging forward with an untethered scream. Before the creature could react to a second attacker, she drove her saber into its open maw. With a sickening crunch, the tip burst through the exoskeleton between its eyes.
Eight legs skittered against the ground as it convulsed in its death throes. The tails thrashed as well, yanking on the chain with enough force that I crashed to the ground on my side with a painful thud. Without my resistance, the tails slipped free, but it was too late.
Black blood spilled from the creature, spreading out to coat the sand with an oily sheen. Keera wrenched her saber free and backed away. With a few more horrible thrashes, the creature fell still, legs and tails curling into a tight ball.
An eerie silence that only comes after a battle settled in the air.
I pushed to my feet, taking a few large strides toward Keera. I grabbed her arm, turning her toward me to make sure she was uninjured. She stared up at me, golden eyes piercing my mask, glowing with the thrill of battle despite the furrow between her brows.
Her cheeks were flushed with sun and exertion, and escaped tendrils of hair clung to her forehead and neck as she panted.
I reached for the edge of my still-sizzling mask, the adrenaline coursing in my veins telling me I needed to kiss her this very instant.
Before I could, I was reminded we weren’t alone.
First came one cheer, then another. I turned toward Kelvadan, where the crowd had retreated toward the wall. Now that the creature was felled, they approached again, hollering and whooping at our victory.
I glanced over my shoulder, over the tricrith’s curled corpse, finding Aderyn and my father standing on the other side of the rent it had torn in the earth, their backs to the still-burning funeral pyre.
Aderyn’s expression was hard and unreadable as she watched, but my father’s eyes were wide and full of something that looked dangerously soft.
A hand touching mine drew my attention, and I found Keera intertwining her fingers with my own, despite the fact that my wrists were still bound.
The cheers grew louder as the crowd approached.
“Hail the Champion of Kelvadan!” the shouts rang out .
They grew so loud, that I almost couldn’t make out the words Keera murmured, but I could still feel them through the tether at the top of my spine.
Thank you.
I found myself standing at the foot of Kelvar’s statue trying not to stare up at his face while simultaneously avoiding the gazes of those milling around me. My mask made the latter easier, but the shadow of the mounted warrior was cold and heavy at my back.
Squaring my shoulders against the weight of his judgement, I looked around the courtyard. As soon as the funeral procession had crossed through the palace gates, Keera and Aderyn had been herded away, presumably to discuss Kelvadan’s response to yet another monster rising from legend.
My shackles had been removed when we retreated back within the walls.
The bonds were superfluous given that I was no longer chained to anything.
The rider who removed them unlocked them hastily and shuffled away without another word, apparently having no intention of returning me to my locked room in the palace.
In fact, everybody seemed to glance at me sidelong before hurrying along in their tasks, as if nobody was quite sure what to do with me—or what to make of me. Part of me wondered if they feared me, but too many of the glances held curiosity instead of wariness.
My hackles rose as I considered what Keera had said—that the archons thought some might support me for the throne. Perhaps I should make it clear I was a prisoner again—remove myself as a challenger for Keera’s throne. I did not crave leadership.
I glanced over my shoulder at the entrance to the palace.
My stomach dropped at the idea of voluntarily shutting myself in a prison of stone.
My breath came quicker and the chattering in my head, temporarily assuaged by the battle with the tricrith, grew louder.
Perhaps I could stay outside a little longer.
The clearing of a throat caught my attention, and I turned back.
My father stood before me, hands shoved in his sash. He scuffed his boot on the smooth stone.
“Come on, you look like you could use a drink.” He cocked his head at my mask and narrowed his eyes. “Well, at least I imagine you do.”
Without further explanation, he turned and began weaving his way through the milling riders toward the stables. I only hesitated for a moment before trailing after him.
The sounds of riders conversing and hooves clopping on stone faded away as he led me up the carved stone steps along the side of the stable, to the flat roof that served as a step up to the next level of the palace outbuildings. He walked to the edge and sat, dangling his legs over the side.
His movements were stiffer than I remembered, and he groaned as he bent down, mumbling something about creaky knees, but the pose was familiar. I took a deep breath and joined him in the spot where I hadn’t sat since I was a teenager.
As I dangled my feet over the edge, leaving an arm’s length between us, Kaius reached into the inner pocket of his robes and produced a flask.
I recognized the gold horse head stopper marking it as the one my mother had given him for his fiftieth name day, telling him that if he was going to insist on carrying a flask, it should at least be better than the banged-up tin he had used since his youth.
He took a long swig and grimaced before holding it out to me.
“Unless…” he said, looking at my mask.
Without a word, I reached up and lifted it from my face, glad to feel the evening breeze on my sweat-crusted skin.
The metal contraption grated on me now, even as I craved the safety of its shield.
It was dead weight. I was no longer the Viper.
I’d killed that persona when I chose to surrender and give up my chance to destroy Kelvadan .
Without it though, at my mother’s funeral, many would see me as Prince Erix of Kelvadan, and that identity was just as dead. I was some third thing now—the Erix that Keera had come to know out in the dunes.
On that note, I grabbed the open flask from my father and mimicked his long draught. As soon as I swallowed, I choked on the urge to cough around the fire in my throat. My eyes watered as I held the flask out to my father.
He did not play around with his liquor.
A light chuckle escaped him as he grabbed it and took another swig.
The silence stretched, less uncomfortable than I feared, as if some of the awkwardness had been chased away by the violence of this afternoon.
“I’ve been taking good care of your horse. She’s a beautiful mare,” he said without preamble.
My chest warmed at the thought of her, and not just from the alcohol. “Alza.”
“Was she bred by the clans?”
I shook my head. “She was wild. I caught her as a foal and trained her myself.”
My father grunted in approval. He loved wild horses. “You always did have a good eye for horse flesh. One of the few things you got from me.”
A humorless laugh bubbled up in my throat. “Maybe if I had gotten more from you, we wouldn’t be here right now.”
The words tasted bitter on my tongue, but I didn’t have it in me to take them back.
“We did the best we could. But I know it wasn’t enough.” The normal joking lightness was absent from Kaius’s tone, his voice thin and quiet.
I didn’t look at him, instead letting my gaze drift out over the city to the horizon where the sands were stained nearly crimson with the long light of the setting sun.
I loved when the desert looked like this—as if you could see the blood of all who had fallen to her fury painting the sands, but it was still somehow beautiful. Peaceful.
“I don’t forgive you. Or her.” The voices in my skull chattered in agreement, despite the relative calm of my magic brought on by the open sky .
The air rustled as Kaius sighed heavily. “I’ve never forgiven myself either, and neither did she.”
I bared my teeth at the swell of something inside me—something soft that I desperately wanted to drown in fury and pain, but those outlets were lost to me right now as I grasped at the possibility of peace. It rose up in my throat to choke me.
I grit my teeth, but the words forced their way out. “Then why do I still miss her?”
The admission burned in my chest along with the realization that I now missed two people who had abused me for my power—one who tried to suppress it while the other wanted to use it for their own gain.
While I felt Lord Alasdar’s absence like a tumor that had been excised, leaving a hole where I expected pain, my mother’s absence was a soul-deep ache.
I couldn’t bring myself to look at my father, but his tone was just as heartbreakingly gentle as I’m sure his eyes would have been. Just like they were when he was patching up an injured horse.
“The heart makes a sport of ignoring orders from the head. Although I have a feeling you already knew that, if the way you are with Keera is any indication.”
At that, my gaze did snap to him. He held the flask out to me once again with a wry smile. I grabbed it and took a long swallow, despite the fire the last swig had lit in my belly.
“That obvious, is it?” I grimaced.
“Your feelings have never been small or easily hidden.”
I resisted the urge to bury my face in my hands as I handed the flask back, now sloshing with just an inch of liquid left in the bottom. Instead, I set my jaw and raised my face to the sky, hoping to let the heat of the sun on my skin burn away some of the frustration.
“It shouldn’t be so apparent, given that I surrendered to her and am supposed to be her prisoner. I’m the enemy.”
Kaius snorted. “Out on the plains today, I heard the crowd cheering for the Champion of the Desert. And I don’t think I’m so old as to need my hearing checked yet. ”
“Keera is their Champion,” I sighed.
“You have as much claim to that title as she does, if I remember. Besides, I didn’t see anybody rushing to lock you up after you helped their queen protect them and defeat a tricrith.”
I glanced at him sidelong as he shrugged.
“I’m just a simple horsemaster, not a politician,” he continued, “But it seems like there might be a role for you here besides prisoner . You just have to figure out what it is.”